


Forget-Me-Nots and Marigolds

by nikkiRA



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Identity Issues, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Recovery, Reverse Big Bang Challenge, Threesome - M/M/M, but also present Bucky/Steve because they're forever baby, does it count as a love triangle if they all have sex later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-04-06 08:32:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19059025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikkiRA/pseuds/nikkiRA
Summary: Bucky Barnes breaks out of HYDRA's control with one major problem -- he doesn't remember anything about who he used to be. He searches out Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson, and the three of them embark on a journey to try to jump start Bucky's memories.“HYDRA carved out my brain and took everything from me,” Barnes said, voice scared. Steve was frozen, the same way he had been when he first saw Bucky. So Sam spoke, instead.“Then we’ll get everything back,” he said, sounding more confident than he felt. But he had to get that look off of Steve’s face.“What if we can’t?” Barnes said, turning to look at Sam, a look in his eyes like he wanted to trust him but was too afraid to.“Then we’ll help you start over."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SweetInsanityArts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetInsanityArts/gifts).



> hello and welcome to my rbb! i'll be posting up until my posting date on june 12! [amazing, beautiful artwork here!](https://www.instagram.com/p/ByPH0LyoJwm/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link)
> 
> a big thank you to my friend Catie for the beta.

“Your name is Bucky. I’m not going to hurt you. You’re my friend.” 

The Asset stopped. He could feel the plates in his metal arm recalibrating; he did a check on himself for injuries -- dislocated shoulder, bruises present on most of his body. He watched as Captain America threw the shield away. His eyes were earnest and very, very blue. 

“You know me. You’ve known me your whole life.”

The Asset looked into Captain America’s eyes and was struck by the startling realization that he was not lying. Whatever Captain America was saying, he believed it wholeheartedly. 

The Asset did not know him, not the way that Captain America wanted. He knew him as Captain America Steve Rogers, as his mission. He found himself wishing he could give Captain America what he wanted. 

“Bucky,” Rogers said, and his voice was -- it was light, it was the sun, it was a bed after a lifetime of rocks. But the Asset did not know him. 

Steve Rogers reached his hand out; the Helicarrier blew apart around them. 

* * *

The Asset pulled Steve Rogers from the river and then he ran. He found a house, locked up but empty, and broke in through the upstairs window. He made sure to listen to any noise that might have been the owner returning home. The Asset did not want anyone to see him. He knew that he would have to kill anyone who saw him, in case it got back to HYDRA, and the Asset was beginning to realize that he did not want to kill people.

The first thing he did was take a shower. It took him a couple minutes to figure out what all the buttons and taps did, but eventually he managed to work it, standing under the blissfully hot water. He cleaned off all the dirt and blood that had caked onto his skin, and when he was done he allowed himself to stand beneath the water, turning his face up and letting it wash over him. 

Was HYDRA looking for him? Or had Steve Rogers burned them to the ground? There were meet up points he was supposed to find in situations like this, where something happened and he had to separate from his handlers. He was meant to wait there until someone came to bring him back, to put him back on ice and scramble his brain again. 

The Asset didn’t want to go back. He was beginning to understand that he had his own thoughts and feelings, and it was disorienting, but he was pretty sure he liked it. The feeling that he was more than a weapon. That he used to exist as someone else, even if the only proof of that was the way Steve Rogers looked at him.  

After he showered he rummaged through the dresser in the master bedroom, looking for something that would fit him that wasn’t covered in blood. He managed to find a pair of jeans that were only slightly too tight and a t-shirt. He felt like he should leave some money for stealing, but he didn’t have any, so he could only hope that the man who lived there didn’t miss anything too much. After he had dressed he went down to the kitchen and rummaged about in the fridge. 

He ended up eating a  _ lot.  _ He hadn’t even realized he was hungry until he started eating, and then he couldn’t stop. The guilt he felt about eating all the owner’s food wasn’t strong enough to make him stop, and after he had more or less cleaned out the fridge -- meat, yoghurt, fruits and vegetables and leftover pasta -- he moved on to the cupboard, working through half a loaf of bread before he had to lean over the sink and vomit. Maybe he shouldn’t have eaten so much; his stomach wasn't used to solid food.

After cleaning up the mess he had made in the sink he rifled through closets until he found a backpack. He took this and filled it up with food to eat later, at a slower pace, as well as a couple change of clothes and some bottles of water. 

He was starting to slow down. His head was cloudy, and he felt like he was walking through water, like someone was clinging to his ankles as he walked. His mouth was dry. He wanted -- needed -- to lie down. He knew it was risky to stay here, when he had taken so many things, eaten so much, but he believed it was riskier to try and find somewhere else to stay. His reflexes were slow, and if anyone, not even just HYDRA, noticed him, he would be completely unable to defend himself. With stiff, shaky fingers he straightened up the evidence that he had been there. There wasn’t anything he could do about the missing food, unfortunately, but he cleaned up as best as he could before crawling into one of the extra bedrooms and hiding beneath the blankets. 

He was either the luckiest bastard in the world or somewhere up there was looking out for him, because no one bothered him during the days he lay in bed, sick and shaking. He wasn’t sure if the owner of the house even came home. By the time the worst of the withdrawal wore off -- because he was certain that’s what it was, that HYDRA had pumped him full of drugs and now he was suffering for it -- he was drenched in sweat and weak, and the room smelled, frankly, like someone had died in it. Eventually he was able to drag himself out of the bed and back into the shower, washing off the sweat and vomit, scrubbing until his skin was raw. He managed to drink some water and a bit of chicken broth, just to have something in his stomach, but the thought of anything else was too much. He stripped off the clothes he had been wearing and the sheets off the bed. He didn’t know how to wash them, so he just left them piled in a corner and grabbed some more clothes from the drawers. 

He had long overstayed his welcome, and was itching to leave, to try and figure out who he was without HYDRA, to maybe look into this Bucky Barnes person, see if he recognised who he apparently used to be. He restocked his backback and then, before leaving, grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen, writing  _ sorry about your spare bedroom + all the food.  _ He was surprised at how easily he was able to remember the letters, how easily he was able to translate his thoughts into words, even if it was just this simple sentence. Before he left he took a notebook from the office and a couple of pens, stashing them away in his bag in case he wanted to write down anymore of his thoughts. 

And then he headed to the museum. 

* * *

“James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Pardon?”

Bucky turned towards the woman who was standing beside him. “What did you say?” She asked.

Bucky just gestured to the display in front of them, at the name and the face that used to be his. The woman nodded. 

“Oh, yes. Steve Rogers’ best friend. Must have been strange, huh? To grow up with him when he was small, and then watch him turn into Captain America?”

He regretted speaking. He hadn’t even meant to, the name had just -- just come out of his mouth, a desire to hear it, to somehow attach it to himself. The face that stared back from the display was definitely his. He recognized it, or the bare bones of it, at least. That was his face, and that was his name, and Steve Rogers hadn’t been lying when he said they had been friends.

And yet Bucky couldn’t remember anything else. The only thing he knew was that the name Rogers had called him,  _ Bucky,  _ fit him, made him feel… comfortable. But nothing else had stuck out to him. None of the names of the Howling Commando’s, or Steve Rogers’ small, sickly body. He searched through every display in the exhibit twice, looking for something, anything that could jump start his memory. But the only thing he recognized was his face. 

It wasn’t enough. He needed more. When Steve Rogers had called him  _ Bucky  _ he had felt, for the first time, that he was something more. That he was  _ real.  _ He had been someone before they had taken him and carved out his insides. They had taken his realness, his personhood away from him and turned him into their machine. He wanted that personhood back. 

And if Steve Rogers was the only one who could give it back, he was going to seek him out. 


	2. Chapter 2

Steve got out of the hospital after four days, which was a testament to the damage Bucky had done. Steve couldn’t remember the last time it took him four days to heal from something. Not since he had taken the serum, at least. 

Sam came every day to visit, and stayed most of the day, even during the beginning, when Steve was barely conscious. The damage Bucky had done was extensive: multiple broken ribs, extensive blood loss from the three gunshot wounds, shattered cheekbones and a concussion. Sam filled him on what had been happening while Steve was out. Bucky had disappeared, which Steve had mostly been expecting. Natasha had released HYDRA’s and SHIELD’s files to the public, and everyone was dealing with that fallout. She had also been called before the Department of Defence who, evidently, were not very happy that he had crashed three huge Helicarriers into the Potomac. Apparently it didn’t matter that there had been Nazi’s involved. 

Sam was there to help when he was finally released from the hospital, showing up with a change of clothes and some real food. Steve accepted both gratefully, although admittedly he did go for the food first. 

“Where are we going?” He asked, once it became clear that Sam wasn’t driving him to his place. Sam shot him a quick look before focusing back on the road. 

“To a funeral.”

It didn’t surprise him that Fury was choosing to remain ‘dead,’ nor did it surprise him that Natasha was disappearing to sort herself out after all of her aliases were destroyed. He could admit that losing people he trusted -- two of a very short list -- was upsetting, but he understood, and besides, he had his own shit to do. 

“You’re going after him, aren’t you?”

He wanted Sam with him. He wouldn’t be able to rest, now that he knew Bucky was alive, and he was hoping that the file Natasha had gotten him would give him some kind of clue of where he would be, but he both needed to find Bucky and needed Sam with him. He couldn’t imagine starting such a daunting search without Sam, but he knew it was a huge thing to ask. To drop everything to go after a man who had tried to kill them. He couldn’t blame Sam if he didn’t want to come along. He had already done so much for Steve. 

So he said, “You don’t have to come,” even though what he really wanted to do was say  _ I need you with me. _

“I know,” Sam said, and Steve felt his heart sink. He shouldn’t be surprised. He had worked alone before. He could do it again, and he would, if that was the only way to get to Bucky. “So when do we start?”

“Really?” Steve said, trying to sound cool and not like he was about cry in gratitude. “It’s not going to be glamorous.”

“You know I got kicked off of a plane for you, right?”

Steve smiled and clapped Sam on the shoulder. “Thank you, Sam. Really.”

“Yeah, yeah. Really, though -- when do we start?”

* * *

“Okay,” Sam said from the bathroom. “Go over the list again.”

“Clothes.”

“Check.”

“Socks and underwear.”

“I -- doesn’t that fall under clothes?”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes, it’s a yes.”

“Shampoo?”

Sam stuck his head out of the bathroom. “That’s what hotel free samples are for.”

Steve crossed it off of the list he had open in front of him, of things needed for long trips. “All right. Next is --”

The doorbell rang. 

“Can you get that?” Sam asked. Steve left the notepad on the bed and ran to get the door. 

When he opened it, Bucky was there. 

He was leaner than the last time, thinner, his face slightly more sunken. It looked like he had just gotten off a particularly bad bender. He was wearing a red Henley and a pair of jeans, a baseball cap on his head and a backpack on his back; he no longer looked like a deadly assassin and instead like a lost tourist, showing up on Sam’s doorstep to ask where the Washington Monument was. 

“Bucky,” Steve said, all the breath leaving him at once. He didn’t blink, didn’t look away. He stared at Bucky until his eyes began to water, afraid that if he so much as blinked once, Bucky would disappear again. But Bucky stayed. Hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched up. Steve was so happy to see him that he didn’t even dwell on the fact that there was no recognition in Bucky’s eyes. They would deal with that later; for now all that mattered was that Bucky was here. Bucky had found him. “Bucky,” he said again, and the name was the sweetest tasting thing. 

“Can I come in?”

“I --”  _ Yes, yes, of course,  _ he wanted to say, but it wasn’t really his house, was it? He couldn’t go around inviting people into Sam’s house, and definitely not  _ Bucky,  _ who tried to kill them all, who had ripped the steering wheel out of Sam’s car, who had ripped the wings off of Sam’s back and kicked him from the sky. He needed to check with Sam. “Let me talk to Sam. Will you stay here? Promise me that you won’t run.” He was desperate and clingy and he didn’t care one bit. Bucky was back. Bucky was here. Bucky wanted to see him. 

“I won’t,” Bucky said. A lifetime ago Steve would have believed him. Steve would have believed anything Bucky had said. But neither of them were the same, and it wasn’t 1935 anymore. So Steve ran back to Sam’s bedroom. 

“Sam! Sam!” 

Sam called out from the bathroom. “Woah, woah, calm down. Are the girl scout’s back again? My wallet’s on the dresser, buy as many of the Trefoils as they have, and I don’t want to hear about your wrong opinions on cookies.”

“It’s not -- Sam, it’s  _ Bucky.” _

Sam stuck his head out of the bathroom. His beard was half-shaved. He looked over at Steve, who probably looked half insane, and then wiped the rest of the shaving cream off of his face. “All right,” he said, throwing on a shirt and following after Steve. “You got me kind of excited about the cookies though.”

“I would rather nosedive another plane into the Arctic than pay money for Trefoils, Sam.”

“Take your bad opinions to the retirement home, old man.”

“You’re far too passionate about Trefoils.”

“Gotta stick up for the little man, right?”

Bucky was still waiting in the doorway, arms crossed across his chest, shoulders hunched up. Seeing that he was still there made relief spread through Steve’s chest. No matter what happened, Bucky was there, and he had stayed, and he had found Steve. Steve could handle anything with Bucky back. 

Bucky took in the two of them, including Sam and his half-shaved face. His eyebrows rose imperceptibly. “Is that the new trend or something?”

To Sam’s credit, he didn’t seem at all disturbed by the fact that the man who had tried to kill him was now on his doorstep talking smack about his facial hair. “I’m trying to start something. Think it’ll catch on?”

Bucky did not answer that. “Can I come in?” He asked instead, and after a moment Sam nodded. 

It was weird, to see Bucky standing in the middle of Sam’s living room. It was Steve’s two worlds come together, the two people who had done so much for him existing together. Bucky refused to sit down, and his eyes were constantly flicking about the room. Steve didn’t fault him for his paranoia; he had read the file from Natasha, and he knew all that had been done to Bucky. He had vowed to burn HYDRA to the ground for it, and he fully intended to keep that promise. 

“I’m glad you’re here, Buck,” he said quietly, unable to hold it in any longer. He knew something was wrong, could tell from the way Bucky kept looking at him. But whatever it was, they could handle it together. They could solve it, the three of them. 

“I need help,” Bucky said, and Steve nodded. 

“Whatever you need,” he said. Bucky’s roving eyes focused entirely on him. 

“You’re not going to like it,” he said. 

“Whatever you need,” he said again, hoping it wasn’t anything too wild. Bucky looked between him and Sam. 

“I don’t know who I am,” he said, and there was a hint of desperation in his voice. 

“That’s normal,” Sam said. “To lose sense of yourself. It happens to a lot of vets. Add that to the fact that you were literally remade into a weapon and it makes perfect sense that you wouldn’t bounce back so quickly.”

Steve was so grateful for Sam. He couldn’t imagine how Sam felt about Bucky, and Steve didn’t blame him one bit for any reluctance or distrust. To Sam, Bucky wasn’t the guy from Brooklyn who had been with Steve through everything, he was just a highly trained assassin who had tried to kill them. Sam didn’t owe Bucky any loyalty. And yet, despite everything, Sam was still able to recognize Bucky for what he was -- a brainwashed prisoner of war, lose and confused in a century that wasn’t his. 

“No,” Bucky said, and he sounded distressed. Steve was immediately on edge. “I don’t mean metaphorically. I mean I don’t know who I am. I don’t remember anything. I went to the Smithsonian exhibit but I… I recognize my name, I think, or at least it feels right, but I don’t remember anything else. It’s like there’s nothing in my head, like HYDRA just… carved it all away. I don’t know anything. I don’t remember who I am.”

It felt like the ground was tilting, like Steve was falling. He swallowed around a lump in his throat. “Bucky,” he said, slowly, as if drawing out the question would give him the answer he wanted. “Do you know who I am?”

But he already knew the answer, knew it from the way Bucky looked at him, in a way he never had before. It was the look of a stranger. It wasn’t the look of a man who had sat vigil beside Steve’s sickbeds, or hauled him home from back alley’s, or smiled when he kissed, or fought beside him for years in a war that never seemed to end. This Bucky didn’t know him. 

Steve felt like he was going to throw up. It had been hard enough when Bucky hadn’t recognized him before, but after the Helicarrier fight he thought he had gotten through to him… but to have Bucky here, escaped from HYDRA, and to know that when he looked at Steve he saw a stranger -- it felt like a knife to his stomach. 

“No,” Bucky said. “I’m really sorry, but I don’t remember you at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why yes i did dress Bucky in his hottest outfit, aka red henley from civil war
> 
> please forward any and all complaints or opinions about girl scout cookies to @senforza on twitter


	3. Chapter 3

Sam was having a hard day. First, he had spent a decent amount of time packing for a trip that was now, apparently, unnecessary. His best friend had insulted his taste in cookies. Then his best friend’s best friend had shown up on Sam’s doorstep with an anguished look on his face, and the news that he didn’t remember anything. 

And he still had half a beard. 

Sam had wanted to shout,  _ do you remember tearing my wing off and kicking me off a plane?  _ But he didn’t think now was the time. 

The way he felt about Barnes was complicated. Sam could forgive him for the plane -- he had been tortured and brainwashed, and even if Sam still had nightmares of falling through the sky, he couldn’t really hold it against the guy. He could forgive him for what he had done to Steve, too, for the same reasons. Kidnapped and brainwashed by Nazi’s was a pretty solid excuse. 

But the one thing Sam couldn’t bring himself to forgive Barnes for was the way Steve looked at him. 

He was being unfair and he knew it. It wasn’t Barnes’ fault that Steve was in love with him. It was such a classic love story -- childhood sweethearts, ripped apart by war and fate only to find each other years later. Or at least it would have been, if Barnes wasn’t standing in Sam’s living room with empty eyes. 

But Sam couldn’t help it, because when Steve had told him that Bucky had always been more than just a friend, it had felt like falling all over again. 

But he would never have wished for this. The anguish in both of their eyes. Was this worse than losing him? What was worse, Sam wondered, watching the man you love fall from a train, or having him in front of you, unreachable?

“HYDRA carved out my brain and took everything from me,” Barnes said, voice scared. Steve was frozen, the same way he had been when he first saw Bucky. So Sam spoke, instead. 

“Then we’ll get everything back,” he said, sounding more confident than he felt. But he had to get that look off of Steve’s face. 

“What if we can’t?” Barnes said, turning to look at Sam, a look in his eyes like he wanted to trust him but was too afraid to. 

“Then we’ll help you start over,” he said, praying it wouldn’t come to that.

The words seemed to break Steve out of whatever stupor he was in. He stood up a little straighter and nodded. 

“Exactly,” he said. “We’ll do whatever it takes to get your memories back, Bucky. I promise.”

There was so much love, and warmth, and reassurance in Steve’s voice. It made Sam’s heart ache. He closed his eyes briefly, gave the slightest shake of his head. He wasn’t some pining teenager in high school. This was something much bigger than him. 

He opened his eyes and looked at them both. “Let’s get started, then.”

* * *

Steve Rogers wrote like a second grader. It wasn’t something that Sam realistically should have been focused on, given all that had happened in the last hour, but it was bad enough that he couldn’t help it.

Steve was writing a list of meaningful places. That was what was written at the top of the page, in messy, nearly illegible script.  _ MEANINGFUL PLACES.  _

Steve had tried just telling Barnes things, moments of their past. The names of his family, his mother’s pie, the way his sister used to trail around behind them. The first apartment they had shared, his first girlfriend, how he had broken his wrist by falling off a roof. Steve’s voice was calm but thick with memories, and ever present was hope that this time, this memory would be the one to break through the wall, the one that let all the others come spilling through. But each time he was met with another blank stare, another sad shake of the head. Nothing Steve said sparked anything in Barnes, and with each memory he shared with no sign of recognition, Sam could sense Steve getting more and more desperate, while Barnes became more and more on edge. 

Eventually Sam said, “Steve. I think that’s enough.” Barnes’ face was blank, but Sam recognized a carefully placed mask when he saw one. Steve’s increasing desperation coupled with the fact that Barnes still clearly couldn’t remember anything was making him shut down, and they weren’t going to get anywhere like this. 

Steve tried his best to look optimistic. “It’s okay,” he said, and his voice was light but his eyes were tired and scared. “We’ll come up with another way. We’re not going to give up, Bucky, I promise.”

If he had expected those words to comfort Barnes, he was wrong. Bucky’s blank mask faltered for just a moment, letting Sam see the full extent of the despair in his eyes. He didn’t believe them. He thought he would be forever lost. 

“Let’s call it for today,” he said, ignoring Steve’s look. “We’ve all had one hell of a day, and frankly I need to finish shaving.” Unbelievably, the corner of Barnes’ mouth seemed to quirk up in an almost smile. 

For a minute it looked like Steve was going to argue, but he didn’t. He just nodded and tried another winning smile. It fell flat. 

“Good idea,” he said confidently. “Don’t worry if you don’t remember immediately. You’ve been through a lot.”

Sam knew exactly what Barnes had been through. He had read the file after Steve had handed it over with shaking hands, close to tears. It had been hard to read; Barnes had lived through hell, then been wiped and made to relive it for the first time over and over. Sam didn’t know how the man was still standing, how he didn’t collapse under the weight of all his trauma. Steve had said he was strong, but Sam hadn’t realized just how strong. 

“I’m going to go take a shower,” Steve said, smile still on his face. “If you need anything, you can ask Sam. We’re both on your side, Buck.”

Bucky nodded, and with one last look between them Steve headed upstairs, leaving Sam and Bucky alone. Bucky kept his eyes on the ground, and after a few moments of horrendously awkward silence Sam finally spoke up. 

“Uh, help yourself to… whatever. Food, or.” He swallowed. “You know. Whatever you need. I’m going to go… shave.” Barnes nodded, and Sam took that as confirmation that he could leave. So he more or less bolted. 

That had been last night. Barnes had been up before both Sam and Steve this morning, which made Sam think that Barnes might not have slept at all. Steve had offered Barnes the extra bedroom, but Bucky had refused, stating he was fine with the couch. Whether he had even sat down all night, Sam couldn’t tell.

Steve came downstairs looking refreshed, as always, but Sam finally had symmetrical facial hair, so he counted that as a win. That’s when Steve had gotten the paper and written, in his weird handwriting that looked like a mix between a six-year-old and a doctor,  _ MEANINGFUL PLACES. _

“So if telling you about things didn’t spark anything,” Steve said, tapping the pen between his fingers. “I think going to some of the places that meant a lot to you -- to us,” he said, and Sam’s heart stuttered, “Might be more helpful.”

“Uh,” Sam said, raising his hand as if they were in class. “One problem.”

“You’re going to make a joke about my age, aren’t you?”

“No I wasn’t. I was just going to express concern that after a few millennia, geological formations tend to change, and I’m not sure you’re going to recognize some things.”

Steve made a face at him. “He thinks he’s funny,” he said to Bucky. “But that is actually a valid point. A lot of things that were there in 1930 aren’t going to be there anymore. But we can work around that. There are a lot of options.”

Sam looked down at the paper, at the words across the top. Did he and Steve share any meaningful places? If the roles were switched, and it was Sam there, instead of Barnes, what would Steve write down on that paper? Washington Monument? The Potomac? The smoking ruins of SHIELD? And what was that to decades of memories, to a page full of  _ MEANINGFUL PLACES? _

Sam, of course, wasn’t particularly helpful in brainstorming places that might spur Barnes’ memory, so the two of them mostly stood by and watched as Steve wrote down his list. Sam grew restless, shifting from foot to foot, but Barnes stayed stock still the entire time, watching Steve like a hawk as a rather impressive list began to form. 

_ MEANINGFUL PLACES _ __   
_ 1) Coney Island  _ __   
_ 2) Prospect Park _ __   
_ 3) Lombardi’s?? _ __   
_ 4) That ugly church Mrs. Barnes always dragged us to _ __   
_ 5) YMCA if still there? Boxing _ _   
_ __ 6) The Alley

“What is ‘The Alley?’” Sam asked. Steve laughed. 

“An alley near the old tenement we lived in when I was a kid. I don’t know what it was about that alley, but I always ended up getting into fights back there. Bucky had to drag me out of there at least once a month. If he ever couldn’t find me, he checked that alley first.”

“You sound weirdly proud of that fact.”

“I’m not proud,” Steve said, unconvincingly. Even Barnes rolled his eyes. 

“So this is the plan?” Bucky asked. “You take me to Brooklyn and show me around, and hope something sticks out?"

“I…” The disbelieving tone in Barnes’ voice seemed to deflate Steve, so Sam stepped in. 

“Right now it’s our best plan. If this doesn’t work there are other things we can try. Maybe we can try asking Stark. But it’s better to try the simplest option first.”

Barnes didn’t look completely convinced, but he didn’t make anymore protestations. Instead he sat down, finally, and ran a hand through his hair. 

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”


	4. Chapter 4

The drive to Brooklyn was about four hours long, a little longer because they stopped for lunch about halfway through. Sam drove the whole way, casting a look at Bucky before he got in the car. “You know you owe me a new car, right?” Bucky hadn’t been sure if he was joking, or not. 

He didn’t know how to act around Sam. He understood Steve, knew what he wanted -- he wanted his best friend back, the man Bucky used to be before HYDRA had put his brain in a blender. Bucky had almost killed Steve, but he still looked at Bucky with a soft smile on his face, like he couldn’t believe Bucky was standing there. But Steve had expectations of him that Bucky didn’t know if he would be able to fill. Sam had no expectations of him, which was nice, but Sam didn’t trust him, either. Not that Bucky blamed him. But it made interacting with him difficult. 

They didn’t really have a solid plan as to what they were going to do. The only thing Bucky had asked was that they save Coney Island for later, once he was a little more sure on his feet, once he could be around crowds of people without feeling the urge to either run or kill. 

Brooklyn wasn’t familiar. He looked out the window at the buildings and didn’t feel anything. Not that that was particularly surprising, though, he thought. The Brooklyn that James Buchanan Barnes knew was the Brooklyn of seventy years ago. He wished he could see Steve’s face, knew what he was feeling. How did he feel, seeing the city he had loved so much grow up without him? What was it like, to die and then come back to a world you didn’t recognize? Was it worse than what Bucky was feeling, the strange feeling of floating, of not recognizing either the world around him or the face in the mirror?

“So what’s the plan?” Sam asked as they entered the city. “Personally I’m looking forward to seeing this Alley of yours.”

He heard Steve laugh. “We’ll get there. But I thought maybe we could start at Lombardi’s. I’m getting hungry. You got to go to Manhattan though.”

“Man, we just ate.”

“Super soldier metabolism.” Steve looked at Bucky over his shoulder. His eyes were bright, his expression hopeful. Bucky felt like his heart was beating in his throat. “You hungry?”

Bucky nodded. He hadn’t even considered that the serum that had been forced into his veins might have something to do with why he was so hungry constantly. He had just assumed that everyone was this hungry all the time. 

“So what’s the big history of this place?” Sam asked.

“Seriously? You’ve never heard of Lombardi’s?”

“Believe it or not I don’t base my entire personality on living in New York,” Sam teased, which drew a laugh from Steve. 

“Lombardi’s is older than both of us. Bucky used to love to take his dates there, before -- well.” He trailed off, but Bucky knew what he was thinking, what he would have said if Bucky was who he was supposed to be, instead of the empty shell he was: before they got together. Before they threw caution to the wind and started a queer relationship in 1937. 

(That aspect of his identity was the one thing he was comfortable in, the one thing he found solace in. He didn’t know how he felt about it back then, but now, with the freedom of the 21st century, he was able to fully embrace this part of himself that, at least, hadn’t changed. Through hell and HYDRA, that was one thing that had stayed the same: Bucky Barnes liked men.)

Sam’s eyes met his in the rear view mirror; Bucky wasn’t sure what he saw there, because he said, “Actually, how about we head to the hotel first. We got all this shit in the car, and it’s been a long drive, and I’m guessing this hundred year old pizza place isn’t going anywhere.”

Bucky slumped in his seat in relief. He wouldn’t have said anything, but the idea of going straight to some mythical restaurant that was supposed to magically restore his sense of self was a lot of pressure that he needed to build himself up to. 

Steve nodded, always eager to make things easy. “Yeah, yeah, of course. That’s a good idea. Don’t want to overload us.”

_ Me,  _ Bucky thought.  _ He means he doesn’t want to overload me.  _ He leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes, wondering. Wondering if it was always going to be like this, Steve walking on eggshells around him, never willing to push too hard, always waiting for Bucky to open his eyes and remember. 

_ James Buchanan Barnes. March 10, 1917. Winifred and George Barnes. Rebecca Barnes.  _ He said these things to himself, over and over, hoping for anything. Any kind of spark. The vaguest outline of his mother’s face. His sister’s favourite colour. 

He opened his eyes to an unfamiliar skyline. 

* * *

The hotel they went to was nice, but not extravagantly so. Bucky couldn’t help but think it was exactly like Steve -- nice and simple and welcoming. The concierge seemed completely star struck when Steve walked up to the counter, and when Steve asked for three rooms, the concierge upgraded them to their nicest suites.

“Oh, absolutely not,” Steve said with what Bucky was already beginning to recognize as his famous Captain America smile. “I don’t need any special treatment.”

“No, I insist! It would be an honour, Captain Rogers, truly, you have no idea, I am -- I mean, all that you’ve done, and, and --”

Steve held up his hands. “All right, all right. But I’m paying full price.”

“No sir, I can’t allow that. Please.”

“I --”

“You know what?” Sam said, stepping in and smiling at the concierge. “We accept. Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Bucky said to Sam as they headed up. “I thought that was going to go on forever.”

“It could have,” Sam muttered back. “Once a waiter brought him a free dessert and they argued back and forth for so long that the ice cream melted.” Bucky snorted. “I mean it. It was ice cream soup. And then the waiter tried to bring him another ice cream.”

“Christ.”

They were in rooms 705, 707, and 711. Bucky helped himself to room 711. Together but a little bit separate. It seemed appropriate. 

“What the fuck,” he said when he opened the door. 

“Welcome to the Captain America affect,” Sam said as he walked past. 

It wasn’t that it was huge -- the hotel itself wasn’t nice enough to have multi-room suites, although this one did include a beautiful ensuite with a deep tub. It was the extras all around the room that was surprising; chocolates on the pillows, a bottle of champagne, flowers and a goddamn fruit basket. Bucky shook his head. He had, occasionally, stayed in hotels with HYDRA, but they had never been anything like this. 

He did a walk around the room; one large window facing north -- they were seven stories up, but that wouldn’t have stopped him. A highly trained operative wouldn’t be deterred by it. Glass was relatively strong but not bullet proof, and the bed was right in its sights. There was, however, a couch tucked into the corner, against the same wall as the window. He grabbed the pillow and comforter off the bed and threw them onto the couch. It was safer that way. 

He went to check out the bathroom. Twin sinks, a shower and a tub, with fluffy towels hung up, and bottles of flowery scented shampoo and soap. It was very tempting, but before Bucky let himself enjoy it, he wanted to check in on Sam and Steve and what it was, exactly, that they were planning to do today. 

He knocked on 707. Steve answered; Sam was in there, as well. Bucky was fairly certain that they had been talking about him. 

“Bucky,” Steve said, with his wide smile and soft eyes. Bucky hated the way Steve looked at him, but he also didn’t want him to ever stop looking at Bucky that way. He had been in love with Steve, once upon a time. When they were young, before the war, before he fell screaming off a train and landed in HYDRA’s lap. He wondered what would happen if he stepped forward and touched him. If he just reached out, grabbed Steve by his shoulders and pulled him in. Could he do it? Could he reach out?

“Are you okay? Do you need something?” Every word Steve spoke was dipped in honey, coated in genuineness. Bucky found him hard to look at, sort of like the sun. Shining bright and warm and dangerous, if you got too close to it. Bucky felt like he was burning. 

“No, I just… I wanted to know if we had any. Immediate plans. I uh, maybe wanted to take a bath.”

“Oh!” Steve beamed, as if Bucky taking a bath was the single greatest thing that could have happened to him. He guessed it was a measure of normalcy, in a way. Probably best not to mention that he was sleeping on the couch, in that case. “Uh, no, we’ll probably start tomorrow. Feel free to relax! Sam and I were probably going to go down to the pool later. Do you, um.” He suddenly got a shy sort of look on his face. “We can knock on your door, if you’d like? To see if you want to join?”

The thing was, Bucky didn’t really want to go to the pool. He wanted to sink into his very deep tub and close his eyes and maybe, for what felt like the first time in his life, try this whole ‘relaxing’ thing. But he knew that it was very easy for him to make Steve Rogers happy, and he has a feeling that, whoever he used to be, he had been very concerned with making Steve Rogers happy. It felt natural. So he nodded, and watched Steve’s smile spread across his face, and it felt right. 

“Good! Good. So you can go -- enjoy your bath, and Sam and I will come get you when we want to head down. Does that sound… all right?”

Bucky nodded again. It seemed like the easiest thing to do. 


	5. Chapter 5

To be completely honest, Steve hated Lombardi’s. It was a completely petty thing, really. It was just that, well -- Bucky always took his dates there, and Steve had always been horribly jealous. And then, when they had finally gotten together, they had never gone. It hadn’t seemed necessary. They had nothing to prove; they were together, like they had been meant to be. Steve didn’t need to be paraded around like one of Bucky’s girls. 

But mostly, if he were being truthful, the pizza had always made his stomach hurt. 

Sam complained the whole way about how driving in New York was the single worst thing he had ever experienced, and he had been to war, thank you very much, and had fought actual, literal Nazi’s, for fuck’s sake, and where the hell was everyone  _ going? _

“Take this left,” Steve said. 

Lombardi’s was a long shot, admittedly. It had been relocated, for one, and their salads cost nine fucking dollars, now. But they had kept the aesthetic of it similar to the one Steve and Bucky had known, and Bucky had spent so much time in a place that had looked almost exactly like this, just a block to the right. It was a good starting point. Something small but meaningful. If Lombardi’s didn’t bring Bucky’s memories back, Steve wouldn’t be surprised, but it was also the kind of place that might work itself deep in Bucky’s brain and start prying things loose eventually. 

And if it didn’t, well. At least they got lunch out of it. 

Steve wasn’t putting all his chickens in one basket, was the point. 

“1905, huh?” Sam said, flipping through the menu. “Better be good pizza, then.”

Bucky was also looking at the menu. “Who is the ‘Cake Boss’?”

“And why is his pizza $35.00?” Sam muttered under his breath. 

“He’s, uh. Television guy. No refills? Seriously?”

“How much did pizza cost when you two came here? Did they even have money back then?”

“Ha ha ha,” Steve said. “Should we… split a pizza?”

Both Sam and Bucky looked up at him. Bucky raised an eyebrow, and looked so much like his old self that Steve’s heart almost burst from his chest. 

“Yeah, okay, okay. Three pizzas.”

Sam cleared his throat. 

“Okay,” he conceded. “Five pizzas.”

* * *

“So,” Sam said, as they left the little shop. “Anything?”

Steve was happy he had asked. He had been too afraid to. He knew what the answer was, of course -- Bucky hadn’t mentioned anything, and Steve was certain he would have if he had regained any other memories. But there was always the tiniest little bloom of hope that sat in his chest, that maybe Bucky was just waiting for one of them to ask, that maybe he’d turn around and say  _ it hasn’t really changed all that much since it gave you food poisoning in 1931.  _

He didn’t, of course. He shook his head, small, jerky movements like he didn’t want them to see. Steve tried not to let it affect him much. He had other eggs, other baskets. 

“That’s fine, that’s okay, that’s fine,” Steve said, ignoring the look Sam shot him, which probably meant something like  _ can you please, for once in your life, be chill.  _ Steve wasn’t good at chill, seventy years spent in the Arctic or not. 

He’d have to tell Sam that joke. 

“What Steve is trying to say,” Sam said to Bucky. “Is there are other options, and even if it doesn’t work, that’s okay, too.”

And Steve had the worst, most terrible thought he’s ever had, which was:  _ will that be okay? _

Self-loathing washed over him like a wave, to the point where his steps faltered. Sam and Bucky both looked back at him and he shook his head, placing a hand on his stomach. “Pizza still doesn’t agree with me, I guess,” he said weakly, watching as Bucky’s eyes searched his face, as if he still knew when he was lying. 

How could he possibly think that? What was wrong with him? He had Bucky back, in front of him, alive and mostly whole, and he -- and he still -- this was more than he had ever dreamed of. His best friend, the man who meant more to him than anyone, the  _ goddamn love of his life  _ and here he was, bitter and pouting because Bucky had suffered so much trauma that his memories had fallen out of his head. He didn’t deserve to have Bucky back if this was how he was going to act. 

He stayed silent all the way to the hotel, where he excused himself back to his room, claiming stomach pains again. Bucky gave him another searching look, but he didn’t say anything, just nodded and went back to his room, maybe to take another bath, leaving Steve to dwell on what a horrible person he was, and how Bucky deserved so much better than him. 

There was a knock on his door. 

When he opened it Sam barged in, sat himself down on the bed, and said, “What the hell’s wrong with you.”

Steve sat down on the couch, elbows on his knees. He thought about denying it, but Sam knew him better than that. So he said, “I had a horrible thought and now I’m busy hating myself for it.”

“Okay,” Sam said slowly. “What was your thought.”

“I don’t -- I don’t want to say it.”

“Steve.”

Steve sighed and said, averting his eyes, “I thought -- I had the thought that. If Bucky never ended up remembering anything, I didn’t know if I’d be okay with that.”

Sam, being Sam, did not tell Steve that he was a horrible person, although Steve wondered if he might feel better if Sam had. Instead he said, “What was your second thought?”

“Pardon?”

“What did you think after you had that thought?”

“I -- that it was the worst possible thing to think and I didn’t deserve the gift of having my best friend back from the dead.”

Sam shrugged. “You’re fine, then.”

“I -- what?”

“Look, sometimes you have a shit thought, but the important thing is how you react to that thought. You’re not a bad person. Your best friend -- your… your Bucky, is back from the dead and he doesn’t know who you are and it hurts and so you’re having thoughts you wouldn’t normally have. It’s fine, Steve. You’re fine, I promise.”

Steve put his hands over his face. When he spoke, his voice was weak. “He doesn’t know me, Sam,” he said, and his voice was thick with tears. “He doesn’t know me.”

Sam got up and sat down beside Steve on the couch, wrapping an arm around him. “I know,” he said, because what else could he say? What else was there to say?

They sat like that until Steve was reasonably able to pretend he hadn’t been crying. He lifted his head and smiled weakly at Sam. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you my therapist.”

“Not being a therapist,” Sam said firmly. “I’m being a friend.”

And then he looked at Steve, and his eyes shone bright, and Steve had to look away. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t want Sam to look at him that way. The look in his eyes made something warm bloom in Steve’s chest, and he wanted to reach out, to pull Sam to him, to tell him  _ I know. I know and I feel the same. You were the one bright thing in my life.  _

But his entire heart could never belong to Sam, just as his entire heart had never belonged to Peggy. Steve had long ago realized that his heart was big enough for more than one, that just because Bucky had worked his way into Steve’s chest didn’t mean he couldn’t love anyone else. And Bucky had understood that, and accepted it, and had never once felt envious or insecure when Steve told him that he loved Peggy, too. Bucky had understood what Steve’s heart was capable of, had understood that no matter who else he might love, nothing could have ever changed the way Steve felt about Bucky. 

But he didn’t know how to tell Sam that, and besides, it probably wasn’t what Sam wanted, anyway. How could he tell Sam that Steve loved him, and Steve wanted him, but his heart was not wholly his to give away? That Bucky and Peggy still lived inside him? Sam would want all of him, and Steve couldn’t give him that. So he let him believe that Steve didn’t feel that way at all. Unrequited love was easier to get over than a love that could never belong completely to you. 

“Thank you,” Steve said, smiling, before shrugging out from under Sam’s arm and standing up. “Do you want to hit the pool again today?”

And Sam smiled, and Steve almost couldn’t see the hurt. “Yeah, sure.”

And Steve hated himself a little bit more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, lombardi's really does have a cake boss pizza.


	6. Chapter 6

Sam watched as Steve did laps in the pool, occasionally being interrupted by a fellow hotel guest who had heard that Captain America was there. Sam and Bucky sat on two lawn chairs beside the pool; Sam had at least gone for the pretense of bringing a book, but Bucky hadn’t, instead just watching, with extreme focus, as Steve did his laps. 

Eventually, Sam has to break the silence. “What do you feel, when you look at him?”

Bucky blew out a breath and looked down at his hands. It was an incredibly human gesture that caught Sam off guard. 

“He looks at me like I’m the sun,” Barnes finally said. “I’m just trying to figure out a way not to burn him.”

Sam looked at where Steve was half out of the pool, drying his hands so he could sign another autograph. 

“The thing about Steve,” he said, “Is that it is impossible to be around him without loving him.”

Barnes gave him a look that, even if Sam had been able to tear his gaze away from Steve and the way the water ran off him, he wouldn’t have been able to read. And then he said something that surprised the hell out of Sam. “Do you want to go get something to eat?”

Sam finally looked at him. His eyes were very blue. 

He wanted to say  _ why?  _ Or  _ no.  _ Or even  _ we should ask Steve.  _ He wanted to say a lot of things, but what he ended up saying was, “Sure.”

* * *

They found one of those little hole in the wall restaurants, the ones whose entire purpose in life was to serve breakfast at all hours. Sam ordered pancakes, and Bucky ordered two of something called a Lumberjack, which seemed to consist of absolutely everything you could possibly think to serve for breakfast.

“Hungry?” Sam asked. Bucky didn’t answer this, instead taking a drink of his chocolate milk. Yes,  _ chocolate milk.  _ Sam couldn’t believe it. The most highly skilled assassin in the world, a hundred year old soldier who had been turned into a super weapon, had asked for chocolate fucking milk. 

“Always,” Bucky said, shovelling eggs into his mouth. “It’s actually quite distracting.”

Barnes worked through his plate, and as he finished with the last of his pancakes he said, “So are we going to talk about Steve?”

“What about Steve?”

Bucky gave him a look that said quite clearly that he wasn’t buying Sam’s bullshit. It was strange to see; Bucky had kept such a straight face most of the time, keeping his emotions locked up, that it was unnerving to see him be so free with himself. 

“What?” Sam asked. 

“Just because I have amnesia and don’t remember who I am and quite possibly killed JFK doesn’t mean I was born yesterday.”

Sam looked around him as if the fucking FBI had been listening. “You can’t just say that shit, man.”

“Why? No one is going to think I’m actually serious,” he said, and then he laughed. It was a nice laugh. It was a really nice laugh. Sam was taken aback at how nice his laugh was, and how much he would like to hear it again. “Besides, you’re not going to distract me. Talk to me about Steve.”

“What do you want to know?”

Barnes reached across the table and stole a piece of Sam’s bacon. Sam tried to steal it back. 

“It’s not my fault you left it so long. Cut the shit, Wilson, we both know you look at him with those, like. Heart in your eyes yellow things.”

“... Emoji’s?”

“Yeah, sure.” Barnes shook his head. “I believe your exact words were ‘it’s impossible to be around him without loving him.’”

“Okay, well, I definitely didn’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

Sam made his voice light and airy. “‘It’s impossible to be around him without loving him.’”

Bucky snorted. “You sound British.”

“That was exactly what you sounded like.”

Bucky picked up his fork and started scraping it against the plate. “For what it’s worth,” he said quietly. “You are right.”

Sam looked up sharply. If Barnes was saying…

“You need to tell him.”

“Tell him what?” Bucky said. “I don’t even know him.”

“You do,” Sam said, even though it hurt him to say it. “You know him.”

“He doesn’t know me,” Bucky said.

“What -- what do you mean? Of course he does. He knows you better than --”

“No, he doesn’t,” Bucky said, and his voice was firm and sad. “He knows whoever the hell I used to be, but I’m not… I don’t know how to be that guy anymore. I can’t be who he wants.”

“All he wants is you, Barnes,” Sam said, and the words burned his throat. He thought of the way Steve looked at Bucky, at the brightness in his eyes, the soft smile he always had whenever Barnes spoke. Every smile was another cut to Sam’s skin, another soft lullaby he would never have. “No matter who you are.”

“He looks at me like I have the answer to every question, but I didn’t even know we were taking a test.”

Sam’s mouth quirked. “That’s very poetic.” Bucky kicked him under the table. “No, really. Did you kill Robert Frost, too?”

Bucky huffed out a laugh. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re an asshole, Wilson?”

Sam kicked him back. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re not as tough as you seem?”

And then Bucky smiled this  _ smile.  _ And his eyes crinkled up, and they filled with mirth, and he looked at Sam like, like… 

Like Sam had the cheatsheet to that test Bucky hadn’t known about. 

“Why don’t you tell that to JFK?” 

* * *

When they got back to the hotel, Steve was waiting for them. He looked up when they entered; he had been sitting on one of the armchairs in the lobby, eating a bag of Cheetos.

“Cheetos?” Sam said, coming up behind him. He started, turning around and looking at Sam with a smile that set his heart on fire. “I cannot imagine Captain America with Cheetos fingers.”

Steve reached out and wiped his orange fingers all over Sam’s face. Sam jerked away, backing into Bucky, who straightened him with a strong arm, laughing at the streaks of orange on Sam’s face. 

“Where did you two get off to?” Steve asked, acting completely cool and like he hadn’t been freaking out in the slightest. Sam, of course, had texted him and told him what was going on so Steve didn’t think Bucky had gone off the deep end and kidnapped Sam, or something, but it was fun to watch him pretend that he hadn’t been sitting in the hotel lobby the entire time waiting for them to get back. 

“Dinner,” Bucky said, slouching down in one of the chairs and grabbing the Cheetos bag out of Steve’s hand. This small act of personhood put a grin on Steve’s face. “We would have brought you along if you hadn’t had a string of obsessed cronies following along behind you.”

“Cronies?” Steve said with a laugh. “I’d hardly call them cronies.”

“They’d rob a bank if you asked, I think that makes them cronies.”

Steve’s eyes were practically on fire, so lit up with glee at the way Bucky was acting. “I’d never ask them to rob a bank.”

“Doesn’t mean they’re not cronies.”

Was this what he had been like before, Sam wondered? Was this Bucky Barnes at heart? The base programming of a man who had loved and fought so fiercely? They had taken away his memories, but they hadn’t succeeded in changing this, couldn’t take away every small thing that made a person a person, a stolen Cheetos bag, a kick under the table, a smile like coming home. No wonder Steve loved him, Sam understood. No wonder he carried him in his heart for seventy years, no wonder he would have fought the entire world to get back to Bucky Barnes. 

Sam thought he probably would have done the same. 

“He’s got a point, you know.”

Steve put a hand to his heart and leaned his head back on the chair, looking at Sam. “Et tu, Sam?”

“Look, I call them like I see them. And I see cronies.”

“I think both of you are just jealous,” Steve said, crossing his legs. Bucky sat forward and widened his eyes, holding an invisible piece of paper out to Sam. 

“Oh please, Mr. Captain America, please can I have your autograph?”

Sam laughed and pretended to sign. “Remember to stay in school, kid.”

“I have never told anyone to stay in school,” Steve protested. 

“You don’t have to,” Bucky said. “Your whole being exudes it. Besides, who would want my autograph?”

“Republicans?” Sam asked. Bucky threw a Cheeto at him; Steve bent forward to pick it up. Sam sat on the armrest of Steve’s chair and smiled, relaxing in the company of the two people with him. 

And then Steve said, “So I was thinking tomorrow we could hit up Prospect Park and the church Mrs. Barnes made us go to.”

And just like that, Bucky shut down. Sam saw the smile drop off his face, saw the mask come back down. Sam wanted to yell at Steve,  _ why did you have to ruin it?  _ But he knows it’s not Steve’s fault, that he didn’t know, that he didn’t hear the sad way Bucky had said  _ I can’t be who he wants.  _ Bucky didn’t see that Steve was trying to bring his memories back for  _ Bucky,  _ not for himself. There was such a huge gap between them, but no matter how many times he told Bucky how Sam felt he wouldn’t believe it, and if he told Steve, he would likely put an end to their trip. And Sam didn’t want that to happen, because what if it  _ worked?  _ What if this really somehow did bring Bucky’s memories back?

“Yeah, sure,” Sam said, bridging the silence. Bucky gave them both a tight, forced smile. 

“Sounds good,” he said, passing the Cheetos bag back to Steve. He stood up; Sam and Steve followed. 

“We should get to bed, then,” Sam said, desperate to stop an awkward silence from falling. Steve nodded, grinned at him, and headed off to the elevator. Sam looked at Bucky who gestured in front of him in a  _ go ahead  _ motion. 

Sam made to follow after Steve, and felt a hand run down his back. 

“Man, that better not be Cheeto dust on my jacket,” he said. Bucky snorted and walked beside him, stuffing his hands in his pocket. 

At the elevator, Steve turned to look back at them. Sam didn’t notice; he was too busy looking at Bucky. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so technically! this was supposed to be done on the 12th! i have a few chapters left that i'm trying to get up as quick as possible lmao whoops

Bucky had originally been of the belief that Prospect Park was like a poor man’s Central Park, although he knew enough not to say that aloud in the presence of anyone from Brooklyn. Bucky had probably been to Central Park, but all he really knew about it was what he had heard or seen on the internet. There were a lot of tourists; there was a statue of a dog. That was pretty much all he knew.

Prospect Park was… nice. It was a park. It was… green. It had nice hills and trees. He wasn’t sure exactly what Steve was hoping would happen, because Bucky could see nature almost everywhere, and nothing was really jumping out at him. Steve must have seen his hesitance, because he smiled and said, “Don’t worry, there’s really only one thing we’re here to see. I didn’t just bring you here to look at trees.”

“I was admittedly a little concerned,” he said.

“Come on, it’s this way,” Steve said, leading them through the park. They did occasionally get gawked at, but surprisingly people left them alone. It was like Steve was protected in Brooklyn; they understood that this was his home. It was sacred, and he was safe here. It was… touching.

Steve brought them a little way into the park and then stopped in front of a tree. It looked like pretty much every tree around them, and Bucky tried his best to look interested instead of very confused.

“This is, uh. It’s embarrassing, so don’t judge me too much.” And then he gestured to the tree.

Bucky looked at Sam, who shrugged. So he had no other choice except to walk forward and try and figure out what the fuck was so important about this one random tree.

And then he saw, engraved a little above eye level, the letters _B + S_ inside a motherfucking heart.

Steve was right -- it _was_ embarrassing. But it was also, at the very heart of it, _sweet._ Bucky could almost see them the way they used to be, before the war, before the serum, Steve small and sickly and him, swaggering and confident and in love. Had it been his idea? Had he taken Steve here, ducked behind trees for risky secret kisses? Had he pulled out a knife and grinned as he pulled Steve over here, carving a heart into the tree, etching their initials into this living thing to symbolize some concept of forever? He swallowed around the lump in his throat and closed his eyes. He felt the ache of memory inside of him. He missed who he was, suddenly and fiercely, missed the comfort of knowing who you used to be. He closed his eyes and tried to remember, tried to reach that part of himself that was still alive _somewhere,_ that was young and fierce and so in love with Steve Rogers that he wanted to show it to the world.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He could sense Steve behind him, like a sixth sense that HYDRA couldn’t tear out of him. It was the same feeling he had had on the bridge, when Steve had called him by his name for the first time in decades; it was the feeling of knowing someone so deeply and completely, that it was written in your very DNA, ingrained into your bones. He was beginning to realize that loving Steve Rogers was part of who he was, and even when HYDRA had tried to remake him into something cold and mechanical, they couldn’t take that away. He wanted to lean into that hand on his shoulder, wanted to turn into Steve, wanted his support and his forgiveness for every sin he had ever committed. He wanted to tuck his head into Steve’s chest and tell him he remembered.

But he _didn’t._ He remembered the feeling of loving Steve but not the specifics. When Steve had been telling him about their past he had said, in a shy voice, that when Bucky was seventeen he had kissed Steve and then ran away, and Steve had gone to find him, threatened to sock him for being an idiot, pushed him against a wall and kissed him right back. He had seemed uncomfortable, like part of him was afraid that Bucky would ask _why,_ or be repulsed. As if he could ever be remotely repulsed by Steve. As if loving him wasn’t the most natural thing in the world.

Steve didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve the broken thing he was. He wished he could be so much more.

“When did we do this,” he said, tracing over the letters with his fingers and knowing that neither Steve or Sam would judge him for it.

“1942. It was before you left for training. You dragged me here and carved that in the tree. I could barely fucking see it,” he laughed. “I was too short back then.”

Bucky stayed silent. Words didn’t seem like enough.

“It’s all right if you don’t remember,” Steve said softly, and Bucky loved him so much for his genuineness, but he didn’t know how to say that. He didn’t know how to bridge this gap between not knowing who he was and knowing that he loved Steve. He hadn’t deserved Steve back then, and he definitely didn’t now.

“Thank you for showing me,” Bucky said. It was the only thing he knew how to say.

It wasn’t anywhere near enough.

* * *

After the emotion of Prospect Park, St. Augustine’s was a subdued trip. They all sat in silence in Sam’s car until Bucky, tired of shouting inside of his brain and overthinking, said, “So tell me about the church.”

Steve latched onto the subject starter. “Picture yourself, seven in the morning, being dragged out of bed by your mother and stuffed inside your nicest clothes every Sunday, to sit in a pew and listen to the priest tell you that you were going to Hell.”

“That’s pretty hardcore, man,” Sam said.

“Mrs. Barnes was a hardcore lady,” Steve said. “I loved her, bless her soul, but she was a firm subscriber to the church of humanity-is-a-cesspool-of-sin-and-we-should-all-burn-for-it. Overall great woman, though.”

She wouldn’t have known, then, Bucky thought. They would have had to keep that to themselves. What was it like, to be in love and unable to show it? His life must have changed when Steve had kissed him back and he would have had to keep it to himself, the blooming of his heart in his chest finally coming alive.

“Of course Bucky made me come every week, except when I was sick,” Steve continued. “My Ma was a believer, but she was more of a hippie. Didn’t much go in for churches. Always thought belief was a very personal thing.”

“Sounds like a smart woman,” Sam said.

“She was,” Steve said. Bucky could hear the thickness in his voice. “She really was.”

St. Augustine’s was large and gothic. It was the exact kind of church that children had sat in for centuries, sweating in too hot clothes and hating their parents for dragging them there every Sunday. Bucky very firmly didn’t believe in God, for obvious reasons. Did Steve still have any faith? He’d like to ask him one day.

Steve had called the church ugly, but Bucky didn’t see it. Well, he could definitely see why it would be considered ugly. It was a mixture of gothic and modern, new renovations clashing with original classic design, but Bucky kind of liked it, actually. The weird contrast was endearing. A mixture of the old and the new. Kind of like him and Steve.

There were a couple of other people in the church, sitting or kneeling in the pews, heads bowed and hands together. What were their problems, he wondered. What had happened to make them turn to God? Was it at all comforting? Had he believed before? Before everything happened, had he had any faith?

“Did I believe in God?” He asked Steve. Steve thought before giving his answer.

“You believed in something. You never really put a name to it. But you believed in some higher power. That’s what you told me, at least.”

Maybe it wasn’t what you believed in that brought comfort, but the act of believing itself. Having some higher power to turn to when you needed it.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t reach any sort of faith within him; it had been burned away. Maybe it would be nice, to come out of what he’d lived through with faith and belief alive inside of him, but the empty space inside of his brain where his memories should be made it impossible. He wasn’t angry, not really, but he was _lost._ If he had have come out the other side with his memories intact he might have been able to believe -- what HYDRA had done to him had been the act of people, after all. But stealing his memories after all of that?

Bucky couldn’t believe in a God that did that, because if he did, he’d have to hate Him.

Suddenly it was too hot in there; Bucky couldn’t stand it. “I need to get out of here,” he said weakly, pushing past Steve and Sam and back outside. A stale wind was blowing and he let out a shaky breath. He didn’t know what it was, why it had affected him so much. Sam and Steve rushed out after him, both wearing identical expressions of concern. He waved his hand at them.

“I’m okay,” he said, unsure if he really was or not. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t be in there anymore.”

“Don’t worry,” Steve said quickly. “I understand.”

He didn’t, but that was okay too. He gave Steve a small smile -- the biggest he could muster -- to try and thank him for that. Sam stepped slightly closer between them.

“Why don’t we get something to eat,” he said. “Reset things a bit.”

Bucky looked at him, heart beating erratically. It was all too much, suddenly; the emptiness inside of him, the stifling heat of the church, initials carved into a tree, Sam Wilson’s eyes.

“Could we just… go back to the hotel instead?” He asked. Steve seemed to hesitate for just a moment before he nodded.

“Of course,” he said. “Of course, Buck. Let’s go.”

* * *

When they got back to the hotel Bucky excused himself to his room, drawing himself another bath and sinking into it. He liked baths, he realized; they were nice, and warm, and he felt safe and relaxed. The hotel room had a nice supply of various soaps, and he always came out smelling nice. He leaned his head back on the rim and closed his eyes, thinking about Steve and Sam.

He was confused, and being confused made him stressed. He had only been back inside of his own head for a few weeks, and dealing with these feelings on top of everything else was a lot to deal with. He hadn’t wanted to deal with this. He had wanted to try to get his memories back, not try and figure out whether he liked Steve’s smile or Sam’s laugh more. He felt like he was in high school, except he couldn’t remember what being in school was like. All he knew was that he liked them _both,_ and that, supposedly, was wrong.

Except it didn’t feel wrong. It felt all right, normal even, to have these feelings inside of him. The feelings he had for Steve felt ancient; they felt like a part of him. But the things he felt when he was Sam…

He could be himself around Sam, but Steve knew who that really was. It was a war within himself between who he had been and who he could be, and he didn’t want to have to choose between them. He wanted his memories _and_ he wanted a future.

But right now, what he really wanted was to spend as much time as possible in his hot bath.

There was a knock on the door.

“Hang on!” He shouted, swearing as he got out of the bath and drying off as quickly as possible. He saw a fluffy white robe hanging on the back of the door and threw it on, wringing out his hair over the tub.

When he opened it up, Sam was standing there, hands shoved into his pockets. His eyes travelled from Bucky’s face to the robe.

“Uh, did I… interrupt?”

Bucky shook his head. “What’s up?”

Sam sighed and shifted from foot to foot before finally saying, “Can I come in?”

Bucky stepped aside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i completely made up st. augustine's, like yeah it probably exists but instead of researching churches i just made one up because frankly i've already missed my deadline here lmao


	8. Chapter 8

Bucky’s hair was wet from the bath. It had started to curl slightly. His cheeks were slightly pink and his eyes were bright. The rented robe he was wearing was fluffy and white and just barely closed over all of his… muscle-y ridiculousness. Sam wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell Bucky to get dressed or not, and the fact that he couldn’t make that decision was causing a lot of stress. 

Why was he here? Why had he come? Well, okay, he knew why he was here, because Steve had asked him to. After Bucky had excused himself Steve had watched him go with a desperate look on his face, like he wanted to go after him but couldn’t remember how to use his feet, and Sam had told him he would go check in on Bucky. So now here he was, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, trying not to look at the bare chest that Bucky’s robe was so valiantly attempting to cover. 

“Uh. I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing.”

Bucky shoved his hands in the pockets of the robe. The belt loosened the slightest amount. Sam was fairly certain the universe was playing an elaborate trick on him. 

What was he doing here? Why had he thought this was a good idea? Why could he never say no to Steve Rogers?

“I’m okay,” Bucky said. He shrugged. “I don’t know what happened back there. Stupid, I guess.”

“It wasn’t stupid,” Sam said, surprised at how genuine he sounded. “Whatever you feel, it’s not stupid.”

Bucky smiled at him. “I’m going to put clothes on,” he said, heading into the bathroom. Then he stuck his head back out again. “You don’t have any alcohol, do you?”

Sam thought that might be the best idea he had heard in a very long time. He stood up. 

“I’ll be right back,” he told Bucky, who grinned at him. 

* * *

Sam returned with a fair amount of alcohol. To be honest, he himself was a bit of a lightweight, but he knew that it was basically impossible for Steve to get drunk, so Bucky was likely the same. He had gotten wine for himself, and the stuff that had the highest alcoholic content for Bucky.

“I don’t know if this is going to be enough for you,” he said, putting the booze down on the table. Bucky picked a bottle and drank straight from it. 

“Guess we’ll find out, won’t we.” He spread out on the couch, one leg over the back, holding the bottle by the neck. He looked --  _ cool,  _ in a way, like he didn’t have a care in the world. It was still so strange to see, this Bucky compared to the other one. It further hit home how on edge Bucky always was around Steve. It broke Sam’s heart. 

He reached for a bottle of wine. 

Almost two bottles later, he was able to ask the question. 

“Are you afraid of Steve?”

Bucky looked up from where he had been very intently studying the back of the liquor bottle. His eyes took a second to focus on Sam. He had definitely had more to drink than a regular human man could handle, but at the very least it appeared to be working. Apparently his bastardized serum didn’t handle alcohol as well as Steve’s. 

“Am I what?”

Sam swallowed down a burp. “Are you afraid of Steve?”

“Why would I be afraid of Steve?” Bucky asked. “Only bad guys are afraid of Steve. I’m not a bad guy." To hear him say that so outright was good to hear. That he would place himself as  _ good _ . 

“You just never act like yourself around him. You’re always on edge.”

Bucky moved his arm so it was behind his head. Sam found his eyes drawn to the muscle on display.

“I told you,” he said. “I can’t be who Steve wants.”

“And I told you that’s bullshit,” Sam said. “Steve wants you. Any version of you.”

“Okay, but you can’t deny that there isn’t a version he wouldn’t want more.”

“But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be happier. I mean, if you’re offered $120 but only end up getting $100 you’d still be happy, right.” Sam’s drunken brain thought that might have been slightly offensive, but Bucky just smiled. 

“Are you saying I’m only worth a hundred bucks?” He teased. 

“Please,” Sam said. “I doubt I could get a hundred out of you. Half that, maybe. On a good day.”

Bucky laughed and threw the throw pillow from the couch at Sam, who blocked rather belatedly and ended up getting hit in the face. 

“I don’t believe it,” Bucky said. “Think about what a selling point I would be. ‘Ex-veteran turned assassin with amnesia and night terrors.’”

“You get night terrors?” Sam asked quietly. Bucky gave him a sad smile.

“Only when I sleep.”

Sam didn’t know what to say. Bucky got up and collapsed onto his bed, one leg hanging off the side, bottle hanging limply. Sam, after a moment of wrestling with himself, lay down on the other side. 

“Sorry,” he said, because he felt like he had to say something. Bucky turned his head to look at him, and Sam told him again 

“Don’t be afraid of Steve,” he said. Bucky closed his eyes. 

“I can’t help it,” he said. “You know what it’s like to be around Steve. It’s like falling in love with a fucking supernova.”

Sam laughed. “You’re not wrong. But still, you can’t -- you love him and he loves you. That should be the simplest thing.”

“Then why aren’t you two together?”

Sam reared back a little. “What does that mean?”

“You love him. He loves you.”

“Steve doesn’t love me,” Sam argued. Bucky opened his eyes. 

“Sam. You can’t be serious.”

“Barnes,” Sam said. “Nobody in the history of the world has ever loved somebody the way Steve loves you.”

“I mean,” Bucky said, as if that was at all debateable, “Sure. But I think…” He sighed. “I don’t know how to explain it, because it isn’t  _ knowing.  _ I don’t know, but I, I feel, and maybe that’s remembering? But it just seems like Steve has… enough to go around. I don’t know. But I know he loves you. I can just feel it.”

Sam blinked up at the ceiling. “That was very deep.”

Bucky kicked him. Sam laughed. “No, I mean it. You sound like my Aunt Theresa. She does palm reading at every family gathering.”

“Oh yeah?” Bucky reached down and picked up Sam’s hand, holding it very close to his face and tracing the lines with his finger. Sam repressed a shudder. 

“Oh,” Bucky said, turning back to look at him again. “It says here you’re in love with Steve.”

“Hang on, gimme yours.” Bucky gave Sam his hand, and Sam pretended to study it. “It says you’re full of shit.”

Bucky laughed. Sam turned to look at him. He seemed so alive; his hair was fully dry, now, spread out on the pillow. He looked younger, softer. Beautiful. 

Sam’s head was fuzzy. His mouth was dry. He was in love with Steve Rogers but he couldn’t stop thinking about the idiot in front of him. Everything he thought he knew about himself and the world was changing. Suddenly, love wasn’t the simple thing he had thought. 

But it was, wasn’t it? It was the simplest thing in the world. 

He leaned forward and kissed Bucky. Bucky’s hand came up to grip the back of Sam’s neck, kissing him back firmly, and even if Sam didn’t really know what was happening, or what he was feeling, or,  _ whatever --  _ he knew this. He knew that Bucky burned bright, and that he tasted like vodka, that he gripped Sam tightly and he smiled when he kissed. And it felt right. For all that he had thought Bucky was full of shit for yapping on about  _ feeling,  _ kissing Bucky felt completely right. 

So that’s all he was going to focus on. He wasn’t going to try to figure out what direction his heart was trying to go. 

He shifted, rolling over onto Bucky. 

* * *

Bucky was asleep when Sam woke up, which seemed like a big deal, considering just last night he had told Sam that he rarely slept. His hair was a mess, his mouth open, chest rising and falling with gentle breaths and the tiniest bit of drool at the corner of his lips. It was, inexplicably, adorable. Sam tried to remember that this man had killed people, had ripped the steering wheel out of Sam’s car, had kicked him off a plane, but then Bucky opened his eyes and smiled sleepily at Sam, and instead, Sam leaned forward to kiss him.

“I don’t understand this,” he said. 

“We can figure it out later,” Bucky said. 

* * *

Sam went back to his room, showered, and then headed down to breakfast. Steve was already there; Sam sat across from him and stole a piece of bacon from his plate. Steve raised his eyebrows.

“They have unlimited bacon, you know.”

“Oh good, you can get more,” Sam said. Steve laughed and kicked him gently under the table. 

“How was Bucky last night?”

Hell, wasn’t that a loaded question. How was Bucky? Bucky was… he was funny, and a good kisser, and he loved Steve but was too afraid to tell him. Sam knew everything would be sorted if they just talked to Steve, but it wasn’t Sam’s place to tell Steve about Bucky’s fears, and until then he didn’t know how to bring up his  _ own  _ feelings. 

So he just took another piece of bacon. 

Bucky came down a few minutes later, sitting beside Steve and grabbing a piece of toast. Steve sighed in defeat and pushed his plate into the middle of the table. 

“So,” Sam said, watching as Bucky grabbed Steve’s orange juice to take a drink. “The Alley, huh.”

Steve smiled at him. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s literally just a dirty alley that I happened to spend a lot of time in, not usually by choice.”

“God, I wish I knew you beforehand,” Sam said with a laugh. “Bet you were a real pain in the ass.”

“Hell, he’s a pain in the ass now,” Bucky said around a mouthful of toast. Sam laughed; Steve (looking delighted and pretending he wasn’t) nudged Bucky with his shoulder. 

“Shut it, both of you.”

“Let’s do Coney Island today, too,” Bucky said suddenly. Steve looked at him in surprise. 

“You sure, Buck?”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah, let’s do it.” He caught Sam’s eye, nudging him under the table with his foot.

Sam nudged back. 


	9. Chapter 9

Their particular YMCA was no longer there, but Bucky had said it was okay, he wasn’t all that interested in boxing. So all that was left, other than Coney Island, was the Alley. 

According to Steve, he had a lot of fond memories of the Alley, despite the amount of time he had spent on the ground covered in blood. It was just that the Alley was in the perfect position; it was close to the bar he and Bucky had always gone to, where Steve would inevitably get on somebody’s case when they started disrespecting the waitress, and it wasn’t too far away from their old tenement, which meant any fight Steve might have gotten into close to home had a convenient location to be dragged to. 

It didn’t look very impressive. It looked just like a dirty alley. 

Sam crossed his arms, grinning. “Amazing,” he said, squinting so he could better see down the dirty alleyway. “How many times do you think you got the shit kicked out of you here?”

“Oh, too many to count,” Steve said. He looked over at Bucky, still always eager for any hint that Bucky’s memories might be returning. 

Truthfully, Bucky didn’t have any hope left that his memories might be returning, but despite this he felt… okay. For the first time since escaping HYDRA, he felt like he had some kind of control over himself. Maybe he never would regain his memories, but he was starting to get a pretty good grip on who he was. He could make new memories. With Steve. With Sam. If Sam was right… if Steve really did want him, even like this, then they could start over. They could rewrite this story anyway they wanted to. 

It was a strange thing to hold in his chest, hope. He kind of liked it. Waking up next to a beautiful man really helped to put you in a good mood. 

“Why did you fight so much?” He asked. Steve shrugged.

“I see a situation heading south, I can’t walk away. Never have been able to. Sometimes I wish I could.”

“No you don’t,” Sam said. Bucky laughed, and Steve nodded. 

“Yeah, okay, you’ve got me there.” He took a long look at the Alley, as if remembering all the various times he had broken his nose there. It was -- cute, to watch him remember. Bucky wished he could join him. 

There was nothing there, no spark or anything. Bucky looked at the alley and just saw an alley. So he looked at Steve instead, at the gentle expression on his face. He didn’t know what Steve was thinking, but he could perfectly picture him, young and too thin, bony wrists and high cheekbones and a spirit that couldn’t be dimmed, fists up, running his mouth to some jerk twice his size. Steve Rogers had never stopped fighting; Bucky admired him for it. 

He stepped forward and stood beside Steve, knocking their shoulders together. “Hey,” Bucky said quietly. Steve smiled at him. “Let’s go to Coney Island,” he said. Steve nodded. 

* * *

Coney Island was a swirling mess of people, but Bucky didn’t hate it as much as he might have. He was still slightly on guard whenever someone bumped into him, but he was handling it much better than he thought he would. Steve kept watching him out of the corner of his eye, and sometimes his hand twitched up, like he wanted to reach out and grab ahold of Bucky. He never did; Bucky wished he could work up the courage to close the distance between them.

“There is no way in hell I’m getting on that,” Sam was saying, looking up at a huge, rickety roller coaster. 

“Don’t worry, it was fixed up and refurbished. It’s not like it hasn’t changed since 1927.”

Sam did not look convinced. Bucky couldn’t really blame him. According to Steve, who was reading from his phone, the Cyclone was a historic wooden roller coaster that had opened when Bucky was 10. It was strange, looking at it and realizing that he was older. 

Steve looked over at Bucky, looking hopeful. “Anything?”

Was there anything? What was that feeling in the pit of his stomach, standing there and looking up? Was it recognition? Did he remember standing here before, younger and brighter, without any of the cracks he had now? Or was he just looking for ghosts where there were none?

No, of course there wasn’t. There never would be, he was certain of that now, but it still hurt to disappoint Steve. He shook his head. He didn’t want to see his face fall, so Bucky looked away, instead, at a family sitting on the grass, eating ice cream. 

But Steve was a good man, and a kind man, so he just smiled as if it didn’t matter. “Don’t worry,” he said, but Bucky saw his twitching hand again. “There are a couple more rides from when we were kids, but it’ll be nice to just enjoy the day. I don’t remember the last time I just took a day to walk around and enjoy myself. Plus I need to get Sam on a roller coaster.” He clapped Sam on the shoulder. 

“Nope,” Sam said firmly. “Absolutely not, I’m not getting on one of those.”

Bucky shot him a strange look. “You fly around constantly.”

“Yeah, with wings attached. It’s way different.”

Bucky caught Steve’s eye, and Steve shook his head, scrunching up his nose. Bucky found himself smiling. 

“What about you, Barnes?” Sam asked. “You gonna tempt fate on that thing?”

He looked up at it again. He had faced hell for decades, and even if he couldn’t remember every horrific thing that had been done to him, he still carried those scars. Compared to all of that, what was one old roller coaster?

He didn’t know who he used to be, but he had woken up this morning and decided he would be in charge of who he became. And he wanted to be the type of guy who wasn’t afraid of a little roller coaster. 

“Let’s do it,” he said. 

* * *

He and Steve got in the line. People were all around, and he kept an eye on them out of habit, but it was easy to get lost in the atmosphere around him, of people laughing, children screaming. A couple weeks ago he wouldn’t have been able to deal with this, and he was still on edge, still hyper aware of anyone who got too close. But he was excited, too.

“You know,” Steve said, leaning against the railing. “You made me ride this when we were young, and as soon as I got off I threw up in the bushes.”

Bucky looked at him in surprise. “And you’re riding it again.”

“I have a stronger stomach now,” Steve said, patting his abs. Bucky snorted. 

“I think that’s an understatement, Mr. America.”

“My name is not Mr. America.”

“I mean, it kind of is.”

Steve laughed, and the line moved forward. 

* * *

Steve did not throw up, thankfully, although Bucky did get off the ride feeling a little woozy. Sam was waiting on one of the benches with the bag that held their wallets.

“Do you feel fulfilled?” He asked Bucky. 

“Oh, completely. Life had no meaning until I strapped myself into one of the world’s oldest flammable roller coasters.” 

“Don’t worry,” Steve said. “We can skip the carousel, but I do want to go on the ferris wheel.”

“Why do we have to skip the carousel?” Sam asked. Bucky shot him a look. 

“We do not have to go on the carousel.”

“I’m just picturing all of that,” Sam said, waving his hand at Steve and Bucky, “perched on top of a dirty old unicorn.”

“Yeah, we’re skipping the carousel,” Steve said. Sam stood up, laughing. 

“I’m just saying, Captain America breaking a Historic Landmark would be a sight to see.”

“Okay, we’re going to the ferris wheel.”

“Cameras flashing, children crying, a dead unicorn in pieces.”

“Why are the children crying?” Bucky asked. 

“Just a very emotional time for everyone, really.”

“I’m walking away, now,” Steve said. Bucky laughed, grabbing Sam’s arm and dragging him along. 

* * *

Sam looked out the window of the little car and sighed.

“I wish I had my wings.”

“That’s a little dramatic,” Bucky said. He was seated next to Steve in the swaying passenger car. Sam looked over at the two of them. 

“So anything exciting about this ride?”

Steve laughed. “Well, uh, technically Bucky lost his virginity in one of these cars.”

Sam stared. Bucky choked on air. “What?”

“ _ Which  _ car,” Sam asked, which seemed like kind of a funny question considering what had happened last night. 

“I think number twelve,” Steve said. Bucky wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not.

“What about… sway,” Bucky asked. Sam snorted. 

“That’s very romantic, Barnes,” he said. Bucky flipped him off. “So like… position wise. Was it missionary, like,” and here Sam leaned back, spreading his legs so one was hanging off the bench. Steve laughed. 

“I didn’t ask for all the details, actually,” Steve said, just as a voice came out of the speakers around them. 

“Please do not rock the compartments!”

“Yeah,  _ Sam,”  _ Bucky said.

“So what I’m getting from this,” Sam said, sitting back up. “Is either they didn’t give a shit about public safety back in 1930 something, or you, my friend, didn’t make it rock for all that long.”

“Okay,” Bucky said, feeling the need to stick up for his teenage self. “I was -- what, sixteen?” He asked, turning to Steve, who nodded. “I’m sure, what was her name --”

“Layla McGuire.”

“I’m sure Layla McGuire was completely satisfied.”

Steve made a noncommittal noise. Bucky pretended to act offended. 

“You’re supposed to be on my side, Rogers.”

“I mean, she dumped you almost immediately after, so. I don’t think it went very well.”

“I am hurt and betrayed, Steve,” Bucky said, as Sam continued to laugh. Steve smiled at him and knocked their knees together. Bucky smiled back. 

* * *

As they were leaving, Steve spoke up, voice  soft and sad. “I guess you didn’t remember anything, huh?”

Bucky stared down at his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said. “There’s still nothing.”

He waited for Steve to speak. He didn’t know what he would say. Would he come up with more ideas, more places they could go? Would they travel the world, find where Bucky had been stationed during the war, try to make him remember his old life by staring down the places he had held a gun and killed?

That wouldn’t help, he thought bitterly. He couldn’t remember much about his life, but he remembered the killing. That had never been the problem. 

So what would he do? Would he try to bring the old Bucky back, or was Sam right when he had said that Steve wanted Bucky, any version of him? 

“That’s okay,” Steve said softly, giving Bucky a reassuring smile. “That’s okay.” And then he put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Let’s go home,” he said, and warmth bloomed in Bucky’s chest. 

Steve accepted him. Steve wanted him. Steve was okay with his broken brain. 

Bucky smiled back. “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

(“You know it’s my home, right,” Sam muttered under his breath. Bucky pinched him in the side.)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these chapters are much shorter because we're basically at the end and also i am WAY past my deadline lmao

The ride back was quiet. Sam was pretty sure Bucky was sleeping in the back, and Steve was quiet, too, playing what looked to be Candy Crush on his phone. 

Steve looked okay. Content. Not at all like his world was falling to pieces. He seemed to be taking the fact that Bucky still couldn’t remember anything fairly well, which was good. Maybe this meant they could start over. 

But what would starting over mean? Steve loved Bucky, and Bucky loved Steve. Sam was absolutely sure about that. But according to Bucky, Steve had feelings for Sam, too. And then there was whatever had happened between  _ Sam  _ and Bucky last night… so what would happen, then? Sam had no experience like this. He didn’t know what it would entail. 

But, he thought, casting a look at Bucky in the rearview mirror, he was willing to figure it out. Whatever it meant, the three of them, he wanted to learn. 

“Thank you, Sam,” Steve said suddenly. Sam cast him a quick look. 

“For what?”

“For everything. For sticking by me, for driving, for… trusting Bucky when you had no reason to.”

“I trusted you.”

“Well, thank you for that, too,” Steve said. He let out a huff of a laugh. “I don’t know where I’d be without you, Sam. I can’t even begin to tell you how important you are to me.”

_ I don’t know where I’d be without you, either,  _ he thought. 

“Well,” is what he ended up saying. “I guess we’ll just say you owe me massively.”

Steve laughed and nodded. “Yes, absolutely. I can agree to that.”

When Sam looked in the rearview mirror, Bucky’s eyes were open. He raised his eyebrows and nodded his head toward Steve, grinning in a way that was somehow lewd. Sam stretched his arm above his headrest and flipped him off. 

* * *

When they got back to Sam’s they ordered Chinese. Him and Bucky were in the middle of a very intense game that seemed to be half footsie, half just straight up kicking each other under the table, when Steve cleared his throat.

For some reason, Sam had a very bad feeling about this. 

“So I was thinking,” Steve started.  _ Don’t ruin it, Steve,  _ Sam thought.  _ Don’t ruin this.  _ “And we don’t have to give up. Even if nothing happened here, there are still other options. Other places we had been. This isn’t a loss,” he said, and he sounded almost  _ proud.  _ “It’s just a setback.”

Sam looked at Bucky, who was clenching the fork tightly with his metal hand. Sam wouldn’t have been surprised if it snapped in half. 

“Steve --” Sam tried to interrupt, but Steve must not have heard him. 

“There’s so much more we can do,” Steve said, smiling at Bucky. “Don’t worry, Buck. We’ll keep trying.”

After a tense moment, Bucky put down his fork. 

“What if I don’t want to, Steve?”

Steve looked completely gobsmacked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t want to keep  _ trying, _ ” Bucky said, his voice sharp. “I don’t want to keep going to all these places that don’t mean anything to me. I don’t want to do this. Just let me be, Steve.” He stood up. “I’m not him. I can’t be what you want anymore.”

He left, leaving Sam and Steve behind. They sat in silence; Sam watched Steve carefully. He was sitting still, eyes focused on the place where Bucky had been. After a moment Sam spoke up. 

“Steve.”

Steve looked up at him. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. 

“I don’t…” He put his face in his hands, rubbing at his eye before looking at Sam again. “What the hell just happened?”

Sam sighed. Apparently, now was the time for truths. 

“Steve. You got to understand… look. There really is no way to put this delicately, but. Bucky thinks the only thing you’re interested in restoring his memories so you can go back to the way things were. He doesn’t think you want  _ him.” _

“But that’s -- that’s insane. Of course I want him. That’s… most of my life has been spent wanting Bucky.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sam said, and it didn’t even hurt to say it. “I tried to tell him that. But he didn’t believe me, and I’m guessing that,” he gestured to Bucky’s empty spot, “didn’t help things.”

“Oh my God,” Steve muttered. “How… Jesus.”

“Look, I know that you were doing this for him. But Barnes…” He shrugged. “He just never felt good enough.”

Steve shook his head. “I’m an idiot. I didn’t -- I didn’t even ask him. I just assumed.”

“He does want to remember. He does. He just felt like you didn’t see him for who he is, just what he used to be. And that might as well be a stranger to him.”

Steve nodded, smiling sadly at Sam. “Thank you for being there for him. For understanding.”

Sam shrugged, unsure what else to really say. 

“And I… I know you guys, uh. Hooked up, as they say.”

Sam made a mental note to come back to that sentence and mock Steve relentlessly for it. As it were, all he could really do was gape at Steve, who shrugged. 

“The hotel walls weren’t that thick, you know, and I… well, let’s just say I’m well versed in the sounds Bucky makes.”

“Steve, I am so sorry --”

But Steve shook his head. “Don’t be,” he said, and he sounded like he really, truly meant it. “I just want him to be happy. I want both of you to be happy. If it’s what you want, I’m glad, Sam, honest.”

It was too much. The softness of his voice and the blue of his eyes. Sam had changed the entire course of his life for him, and he hadn’t regretted it once. He loved Steve so fiercely that it felt like an alive thing inside of him, like he was on fire, but it didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt at all; it felt right, in the exact same way that kissing Bucky had felt right. Like his whole life, he had always meant to end up here, with these two men. 

How had he thought it was complicated? It wasn’t complicated in the least. He loved them. They loved him. 

“It’s not all I want,” he said. Steve gave him a slow smile. 

“You mean that?” He asked, and he sounded so eager that it made Sam’s heart threaten to burst out of his chest. The idea that Steve could want him the way he wanted Steve was a scary thought, but one he was pretty sure he could used to. 

“I didn’t understand it, at first. How you could want more than one person. But Bucky -- maybe he doesn’t remember things explicitly, but he feels things. He understands. He knew that you had always had room in your heart for other people. And I get it, now. It’s not about  _ sharing.  _ It’s about… having enough to go around.”

Steve grabbed his hand. Sam squeezed it. 

“You need to go after him. He’s not going to believe it unless he hears it from you.”

Steve nodded, pushing back his chair and standing up. “I think I might know where he went,” he said. Then he leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to Sam’s lips.

“Oh,” Sam said. 

“I’ll be back,” Steve said with a grin. “And then we have some things to talk about.”

“Looking forward to it,” Sam said. Steve kissed him quickly again. 

“I will clean up when I get back, I promise.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam said, waving him off. “I’m gonna start charging you rent.”

With one more disgustingly soft smile, Steve left. Sam slumped back in his chair and went over what just happened. He laughed, running a hand over his face.

“Holy shit," he muttered. 


	11. Chapter 11

Steve wasn’t positive that he knew where Bucky was, but he had an idea, and it felt right. In any life, in any universe, in any timeline, Steve would know Bucky. It was just something that existed within him, a string of fate that connected them together. Even when Bucky didn’t know himself, Steve knew him. 

He just hadn’t been paying attention, recently. 

The entire drive there, he berated himself. He should have seen what Bucky was feeling, should have known that Steve was pressuring him too much. He had just wanted Bucky to remember so that he could feel some sense of identity, but Bucky had made a new identity while Steve was dragging him on a sight-seeing trip he had had no interest in. He was stupid, and selfish, but he would make up for it a thousand times over if Bucky let him. 

He hoped this would be the beginning. 

His nerves caught up to him when he arrived, and he stayed on his bike for a few minutes, breathing deeply and trying to think about what he should say. After he continued to come up with nothing, he decided to just wing it. He was used to talking to Bucky, to telling him how he felt. He didn’t need a script. 

Assuming Bucky was even here. 

Steve got off his bike and headed up the bank of the Potomac, and sure enough, a couple of yards down was Bucky, sitting on the bank in the place where he had dragged Steve out of the water after he fell from the Helicarrier. Steve’s heart sped up when he saw him. He had caused Bucky so much stress, had made him think Steve didn’t want him -- it was inconceivable. He could apologize a hundred times and it wouldn’t make it okay. 

But he had to try. Had to try to show Bucky that Steve only ever wanted him, no matter who that turned out to be. 

“Bucky,” he said, wanting to warn him that he was there. Bucky made to get up but Steve shook his head, instead sitting down beside him, a respectable distance away. 

“Steve,” Bucky started. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about.”

“I shouldn’t have snapped.” Bucky crossed his legs, staring down at his hands in his lap. 

“It’s okay,” Steve said. “It’s my fault. I should have seen that you weren’t happy.”

Bucky looked up at him. “Sam talked to you, huh?” Steve nodded, and Bucky looked away again. “Snitches get stitches,” he muttered, and Steve couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Don’t blame him. I’m glad he told me.” God, he wanted to reach out and touch him so badly. “I’m sorry, Bucky. I never wanted you to think -- I never meant --” He took a breath. “I didn’t want to push. I’m sorry.”

Bucky was staring down at his hands again. Finally he said, “How did you find me?”

“I know you,” Steve said, because it seemed like the only way he knew how to explain it. “No matter who you are, I know you.”

“I don’t know who I am,” Bucky said quietly. Steve took a chance and reached out to grab one of his hands.

“Yes, you do. I’m sorry I tried to fit you into who you used to be. I just thought it was what you wanted.”

“And I do,” Bucky said, looking up at Steve again with wide, blue eyes. “I do want to remember. Just… at an easier pace, I think. And I don’t know if I’m ever going to remember.”

“That’s okay,” Steve said. “I mean it, Buck. If you never remember your old life I don’t care. All I care about is that you’re here. I just want you here. I just… want you.”

Bucky’s face softened, but when he spoke his voice was guilty. “Me and Sam --”

“I know,” Steve said, and then he smiled. “Me and Sam too, technically.”

“Oh, thank God,” Bucky muttered. “His pining was a little out of control.”

“Bucky, I love you. I don’t care what you can remember. All I care about is that you’re here with me again.”

“I just felt like I could never be the guy you loved so much.”

“It is literally impossible for me not to love you.”

Bucky smiled, entwining his fingers with Steve’s. “It’s weird. I don’t remember, but I -- I know. I know you in a deeper way than I know anyone else I meet. Like my mind doesn’t remember you, but my, my soul does, or something. You say things, and I don’t remember them, but I know them, and I’ve always known them.”

“We don’t have to figure it out right now,” Steve said. “We can ask Tony, and Bruce. They might have better ideas. But there’s no rush. I’m happy here, with you as you are now.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re really sappy?”

“You might have mentioned it occasionally.”

Bucky laughed. Steve tugged him closer. 

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I never ever wanted to make you feel like you weren’t good enough.”

Bucky looked at him for quite a bit, before he finally nodded. “I’m scared,” he admitted. Steve squeezed his hand. 

“Me too. But it -- it doesn’t matter, Buck. We made it here. That’s the important thing.”

“Definitely sappy,” Bucky said. Steve laughed. 

“Can I kiss you?’

Bucky leaned forward and pressed his lips to Steve’s. It was the same, but also it wasn’t, because Bucky wasn’t the same. But Steve didn’t care. He just pulled Bucky closer. 

“We should get back,” Bucky said, pulling away. “You probably left all that shit for Sam to clean up, didn’t you?”

Steve sputtered for a moment before saying, “You left first, if you recall.”

Bucky stood up and stuck out his hand to help Steve up. “We’ll have to make it up to him,” he said, hauling Steve to his feet. 

Steve moved in for one more kiss. “Yes,” he said, not letting go of Bucky’s hand as he led him back to the road, “we will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am sorry for the change in quality/chapter length towards the end there lmao. 
> 
> one more thank you to my artist, my lovely beta who has stayed up with me tonight until three am so i could finish posting, and the rbb mods for putting this together. follow me on twitter at @aravenlikea or on tumblr at @aravenlikeawritingdesk
> 
> does bucky ever remember? can tony and bruce fix him? that is up to you, dear reader.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on twitter at @aravenlikea  
> follow my artist at @sweetinsanityx3


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